Thursday, October 2, 2008

(cross posted from my other blog Musings of the Fae)
So I last left you, dear reader, when I was on my was to Tuatha na bPréacháin Naomh, the Tribe of the Sacred Crows in East Bridgewater. It was a fine night, though I stayed later than I should, especially give the fact that I was supposed to be in Andover at 8 am to set up my booth at the Eastern MA Pagan Pride Project and I probably didn't get home from East Bridgewater till around 1:30 or 2 am, not quite sure. Well, I figured that this year that seems to be my trend, not getting any sleep the night before the PPDs, so I figured I would make it a tradition.. So regardless, the next morning I was up bright and chipper, at least this time most of my car was packed, but I still had more things to pack up and finally hit the road. Luckily for me my friend Debi was also vending at PPD and when I called her she was only about one exit further along on the highway, so I sped up to catch her, and followed her to the site, since she had been there before and I never had. It was rather twisty and turny up there, and it was at Harold Parker State Forest in North Andover. So, you may or may not know, that I also do this hobby called letterboxing where wacky individuals like myself hunt out hidden tupperware containers in the woods or other locations, that have in them a logbook and a rubber stamp, which sometimes are hand-carved. To see some examples of my stamps you can check them out on my blockprints page So if you want to know more about the hobby you can check out www.letterboxing.org. I found my first letterbox while I was hiking with my daughter over 5 years ago, and the rest is history, I have been letterboxing ever since.... if you are interested about more of my letterboxing adventures you can check out my letterboxing blog called Various and Sundry Musings I guess I am all about the Musings... So, the reason I bring up the whole letterboxing thing here is that I had decided I would have a one day only letterbox at my booth, and post it on the local letterboxing lists and have letterboxers visit me. Now, this is something I also did at Faerieworlds in Eugene, Oregon, and plan on doing at Faeriecon in Philadelphia Pennsylvania, next weekend, Oct 10-12.. so if you happen to be at any event I am at, call me Dragonfly and if I have a box at that location I will give you the clues.. so when I was vending my art at the Eastern Massachusetts Pagan Pride Project in North Andover, MA, on September 21, 2008, it was my pleasure to be vending next door to Sha the Loon Witch, who is also a letterboxer whom I had met but not previously exchanged with (when letterboxers stamp their personal stamps in each other's logbooks), and also to get her EMPPP letterbox which she was replanting. My first letterboxer to arrive and get the box was Choi, it was a pleasure to meet him, he plants many beautifully carved boxes in my area, and it was great to finally have a name to put to the face. Also, my friend Kyerstein tried boxing for the first time and she wrote in the logbook that I got her hooked on it... so look out for a Dragon Fairy coming your way ;-) My next visitors were letterboxers who were new to the area, and if I hadn't posted they never would have known about the event, so I was pleased that something I had done had a positive ripple in the universe. So Nature and Caipora came on by with their lovely backpacks full of their greyhounds, who also stamped into the logbook, Peeky and Vito. Such wise and sage faces on those dogs, to me they were reminiscent of some of Brian Froud's pixies or something. Next up were The Merry Pranksters and the Woodland Wanderers with Go Catman and Music Man, and The Sparrows Interest. I had previously met Pete of the Merry Pranksters, but it was a pleasure to meet Deb. It was so wonderful to have all these lovely letterboxers come out and see me :-) Rounding out a perfect day was the visit from Old Hounder and Siamese!
They didn't have their stamps however, so we will have to finish their half of the exchange at Fright Night.... And speaking of Fright Night, after many years of missing this wonderful event, Maine Kokopellian was finally able to get me to commit to coming, and I will even have some of my art with me. I believe there may be some night boxing Faerie Hunting going on ..... so speaking of hunting faeries.. I was very excited when talking to all of these letterboxing folks at EMPPP because Faerie Magazine was interested in having me write an article about letterboxing... It all started because I am on the online Fae community called Enchanted Folk and I had mentioned in my profile under hobbies that I enjoyed letterboxing. Well when I got my welcome message from Be Montague who is the wonderful woman behind Enchanted Folk, she wrote to me asking about letterboxing, wondering if it had to do with decorating our mailboxes, as she is from England and over there mailboxes are called letterboxes... actually letterboxing originated in England, and was called letterboxing because in the early days it was done with pre-addressed post cards that would then need to be posted in a letterbox. Well in any case, I wrote back to her a lengthy email about what letterboxing is, and how it originated in England, etc. Well I didn't hear back from her for quite some time, so I thought I must have bored her to tears in my rambling on and on about letterboxing.. well it turns out that was not the case. I wrote to Be to ask if I had bored her, and sorry I rambled on so long etc, and she said that to the contrary she found it very interesting, and as the UK Editor of Faerie Magazine that she thought it might make for an interesting article.. so it began, and she asked if I would write one, but said she couldn't promise me anything, but that she would run it by Kim Cross who is the Editor in Chief of Faerie Magazine. Well a few weeks ago I happen to call Faerie Magazine about my advertising and ended up on the phone with Kim , so I asked her if Be had spoken to her about me, and Kim didn't think so, but asked why she would have had occasion to do so, so I said about letterboxing, and Kim recalled talking to Be about it, but didn't realize that it was me that would be writing the article.... So she said she was interested in knowing more info and could I email her about it. I did, and that Saturday night before PPD I got my first response from her, which was that she did think that it was something her readers would be interested in, and would I write an article.. so this was all very exciting, and I sent her off the article, which I have since heard back from her that they will definitely use it in their Winter or Spring issue!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am so excited, and I am also very excited that they will be featuring my Faerie Luminaries in their Things We Love section of the Fall 2008 Issue, which I will get to see at Faeriecon, where I happen to be vending on the same block of booths as Faerie Magazine (you can stop by and say hi to me at booth 1512) So I had been babbling to all of these letterboxers who were so kind to come and visit me that this article was a possibility, so I am very pleased to say it is going to be a reality. If you would like to know more about my letterboxes you can check out my profile and logbook on atlas quest (another letterboxing site)
Well, the letterboxing was only half of the excitement that day, had a wonderful time listening to The Gypsy Nomads, Jenna Greene, and Sharynne NicMhacha from the Moors but also meeting so many wonderful people and connecting with wonderful friends. Among the highlights was seeing all of my Pagans of Norfolk County Folks, including Marie and Tony from Prance the Witches Path, and Marie was kind enough to be glowing about my artwork to Christian Day of Festival of the Dead and Hex fame, so he came over to meet me, and was interested in having my work in his store, so visit Hex and keep your eye out for some bad faeries... It was wonderful as well getting to hang with Doug Greene, Jenna's husband, and I look forward to seeing the both of them at Faeriecon. Also a bunch of the Salem fire performers came out to hang, so that was really cool (nothing was on fire though, but will be this weekend at Wildfire) and more of the PNC crowd were great to see and hang with, and some even bought my art! So thanks for keeping me company Glinda, Gaia,
Babs, Brian and Kate, Tony and Marie, Delysia, Reuladair, Darla, don't think I am forgetting anyone. If you want to see more pics of this you can check out my pics on my myspace well after that very long day I headed out to Salem, to help build a dome for Wildfire, but by the time I got there people were gone.. which was fine, as I was exhausted!